Gallas threatened to score an O.G.?

AnCapaillMor

http://www.chelseafc.com/article.asp?hlid=414157&m=9&y=2006&nav=news&sub=latest+news

Latest News
Gallas threatened to score own goal
Monday, Sep 04, 2006

Chelsea Football Club has the following statement on William Gallas to explain the circumstances behind his departure. These include his refusal to play for the team, and if selected, a threat to score an own goal.



The statement says:



Chelsea FC believes it is important for our supporters to be made aware of the full facts regarding William Gallas and the lack of respect he showed to the fans, the manager and the club.



Despite leaving he continues to attack José Mourinho and this cannot be left unchallenged.



Chelsea made William Gallas a very substantial and attractive new contract offer to stay towards the end of last season. This was rejected.



The issue was purely one of money, despite his public comments that he wanted a new challenge, to play abroad and so forth. These were just a smokescreen to cover up the fact he was hawking himself to the highest bidder.



Having failed to secure his demands, his position became increasingly intransigent and unacceptable.



He initially refused to play against Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-final last season in an effort to force an increased contract offer.



As is now well documented he refused to join up with the team in Los Angeles during pre-season, despite agreeing the dates for his return as the other World Cup players did, with the club.



When José Mourinho generously offered him a way back into the "family" after the American tour, this was thrown back in the Chelsea manager's face.



The manager told him that, even if he did not agree a new contract but returned to the "family" and abided by the rules, he would still select the best players available and would not punish him playing wise.



However despite meetings to try and resolve the problems Gallas made it clear to José Mourinho he would never play for Chelsea again.



Before the first game of the season against Manchester City, when only four defenders were available and John Terry was doubtful with an injury, he refused to play.



He went on to threaten that if he was forced to play, or if he was disciplined and financially punished for his breach of the rules, that he could score an own goal or get himself sent off, or make deliberate mistakes.



Clearly this was a totally unacceptable situation for the manager, the team and the club.

Chelsea's interests had to be protected and a solution was collectively agreed. If a satisfactory deal for Chelsea could be found, Gallas would be sold. If that did not happen it was agreed by all that Gallas would have to fulfil the terms of his contract.



Chelsea has a wage structure in place that is valued not only on the contribution of the player to the manager and the team, but also on a player’s respect for the club and contribution to the promotion and image of the club off the field. Every player is expected to play their part in this.



William Gallas rarely recognised these responsibilities. He also failed to recognise the role José Mourinho and Chelsea played in helping him become a double Premiership champion for a player whose only league title prior to that had been in the French Second Division.

Heh.

MrJoeSoap

Wow, what a pro. Hope Arsenal fans realise what they're getting.

Pepe LeFrits

So he threatened to score an OG if he played, but he refused to play? Is there not a slight contradiction there?

Chelsea has a wage structure in place that is valued not only on the contribution of the player to the manager and the team, but also on a player’s respect for the club and contribution to the promotion and image of the club off the field.

hahaha!

Classy club.

AnCapaillMor

MrJoeSoap wrote:

Wow, what a pro. Hope Arsenal fans realise what they're getting.

i know score an own goal against chelsea, he's a legend already and he has'nt even played.

KdjaCL

Is he really getting less at Arsenal? Afaik he was on 60 wanted 90 par with others and offered 75, Arsenal said he was too expensive ie wages.

Have his details been announced?


kdjac

AnCapaillMor

Knowing Arsenal they won't be anounced. They probably used campbells 80k and unlimited pork pies funds.

If its not true "they" could be screwed, its all over skysports news.

bizmark

What a tosser

eirebhoy

I can't believe a player on over £60k a week would actually demand more money. Get a bloody accountant to work out ways of investing your fortune if you're that desperate.

growler

I can't believe a professional football player and an adult could behave so childishly, good riddance to him arse are welcome to have him if thats how he behaves.

GuanYin

I can't believe a club like chelsea, with a manager, pretty much infamous for dramatic sulks and tantrums, can issue such a petty press release and it is swallowed as gospel.

I'm willing to bet there was more to it than this.

Call Me Jimmy

psi wrote:

I can't believe a club like chelsea, with a manager, pretty much infamous for dramatic sulks and tantrums, can issue such a petty press release and it is swallowed as gospel.

I'm willing to bet there was more to it than this.

My thoughts exactly, I'm not saying it all is definately untrue or anything but for everyone to take it as fact, no questions asked, is a bit mad.

evilhomer

Maybe there is more to it, but Gallas came out publicly last season saying how unhappy he was with playing left back all the time. He sulked about that for months.

As I said I'm not saying there isn't more to this then what Chelsea said, but Gallas has set precedence.

If it is true, Gallas is being ridiculously unprofessional not the type of player you want your younger lads taking an example from.

The Muppet

psi wrote:

I can't believe a club like chelsea, with a manager, pretty much infamous for dramatic sulks and tantrums, can issue such a petty press release and it is swallowed as gospel.

I'm willing to bet there was more to it than this.

Me Neither,

"hawking himself to the Highest bidder " LOL thats a bit Rich Roman


Notice the statement said he "Could" not "Would" score an own goal or get sent off, not all that threatening IMHO .


Now if only Owen Hargreaves was as stubborn with Bayern;)

Gangsta

I wouldn't be so keen to take Chelsea's side on this because they are usually unprofessional and may only be looking to get one over Gallas. That being said it could be true but I doubt it.

GuanYin

evilhomer wrote:

As I said I'm not saying there isn't more to this then what Chelsea said, but Gallas has set precedence.

Have you been following football long?

Ever hear of Pierre Van Hooijdonk? Nicholas Anelka?

fade2black

Now now people, we can't be calling players tossers.

Töpher

Yarr! Professionalism!

GuanYin

bizmark banned 1 week.

Fade, report posts dont comment in thread.

fade2black

psi wrote:

bizmark banned 1 week.

Fade, report posts dont comment in thread.

I didn't want to report the read because I didn't have a problem with the comment. In my opinion, Gallas is acting like a tosser. I was merely pointing out that to actually call him so would be breaking the forum's silliest rule.

wheres me jumpa

First off I have a serious lack of respect for players who strike/ go awol etc. and it is something that is occurring more and more. Do contracts mean anything at all anymore?

Secondly, it really makes you wonder what life at Chelsea is really like. Premiership champions, enough talent in the squad to, perhaps win the Champions League but yet a player wants out so bad. Many rumours of other players not happy there also, Carvalo, Drogba and Robben have all been rumoured to be unhappy there.

GuanYin

fade2black wrote:

I didn't want to report the read because I didn't have a problem with the comment. In my opinion, Gallas is acting like a tosser. I was merely pointing out that to actually call him so would be breaking the forum's silliest rule.

Well I missed the post in the thread untilI saw your post, so drawing attention to posts to get a user banned is probably a poor way to make your point.

And it should be made if feedback if you want to make it, not by commenting in threads.

Now, back on topic.

~Rebel~

Id say it was probably something stupid said in the heat of the moment once, still silly but probably not serious. As someone else pointed out the "Could" rather then "would" makes a big difference. It was childish and silly but probably not serious. Id say chelsea, being given a bit of feedback from fans unhappy that they sold one of the best defenders in the country to one of the biggest rivals supplying them with the missing piece for a problem area of the pitch, decided they needed to discredit Gallas and stop him from being a fans favourite.

I just dont think that a professional could be so stupid as to actually mean that as a real threat they planned to carry out.

evilhomer

psi wrote:

Have you been following football long?

Ever hear of Pierre Van Hooijdonk? Nicholas Anelka?

There are plenty more you could add to that list Craig bellamy, Robbie Savage, Ashley Cole! in recent seasons.

I didn't mean a precedent in football. I meant a precedent in how childish he could be in this new deal/transfer saga with Chelsea.

chiller

i dont think gallas would do that! or say those things! he is a fantastic footballer,and i think arsenal have aquired a brilliant player! mourhino made it clear he wanted him to stay at chelsea and now that he has left jose his being his usual sluky self,because a player wanted to leave chelsea imagine!

~Rebel~

There does have to be some truth to it though, just cause Chelsea aren't stupid enough to get themselves into so much trouble falsely defaming Gallas. He'd sue them to the extreme and theyd look even worse then in the beginning. He prob said it once in anger but i doubt he ever had any intention of carrying it out.

Dave!

What a child

eirebhoy

psi wrote:

I can't believe a club like chelsea, with a manager, pretty much infamous for dramatic sulks and tantrums, can issue such a petty press release and it is swallowed as gospel.

I'm willing to bet there was more to it than this.

It may be Chelsea but this is almost certainly true and it's an official statement. They wouldn't get away with making false claims of that nature and I can't for the life of me think why they'd want to. If this was any other club Gallas would be getting slated, he's not getting away with it because he done it to the club everyone now loves to hate.

Töpher

eirebhoy wrote:

It may be Chelsea but this is almost certainly true and it's an official statement. They wouldn't get away with making false claims of that nature and I can't for the life of me think why they'd want to. If this was any other club Gallas would be getting slated, he's not getting away with it because he done it to the club everyone now loves to hate.

Imagine if he left Liverpool under similar circumstances and with similar info coming out. There'd be uprorar. Think eirebhoy's hit the nail on the head there.

kinaldo

eirebhoy wrote:

They wouldn't get away with making false claims of that nature

Why not? Abramovich an Co. afraid of getting sued? Are all official statements made by Chelsea now taken to be 100% the truth? What ever happened that John Obi Mikel transfer, how much are Chelsea paying Manchester, Lyn and his agents for that kid? I can't prove anything but I don't doubt that Chelsea bought their way out of that one. They can get away with pretty much anything if u ask me.

AnCapaillMor

kinaldo wrote:

Why not? Abramovich an Co. afraid of getting sued? Are all official statements made by Chelsea now taken to be 100% the truth? What ever happened that John Obi Mikel transfer, how much are Chelsea paying Manchester, Lyn and his agents for that kid? I can't prove anything but I don't doubt that Chelsea bought their way out of that one. They can get away with pretty much anything if u ask me.

don't forget the huge payout to get spurs to go hush hush over the Arnesen deal. They can afford to throw a bucket load of lawyers at Gallas.

Big Willy G wrote:

am surprised and shocked by these claims. I never said that I would score own goals if I had to play for Chelsea again. I was firm about my wanting to leave, that is true, and I will explain in due time why I wanted to, but I never went that far. But if people want to hide behind false accusations in order to give a reason for why I left so they can calm down the club’s supporters then they can.

Gallas's statement. "Explain in due time"oh god no please don't be another Cole, he's writing a book?

I agree with eirebhoy that something must have been said, Chelsea honestly can't be that stupid or asre they that cocky.

Pepe LeFrits

"Even if Chelsea has much money, its new leaders lack class."

haha, love that last line.

arseblog posted a good reference to a Simon Jordan column a while back:

The closest I’ve come to losing it with a journalist was in 2002, after London’s Evening Standard, who’d always had great access and cooperation from us, started producing a string of barbed, personal piss takes.

I decided that if they wanted to write this stuff, fine, but they weren’t going to do it on our premises, so I withdrew their accreditation. The sports editor’s reaction was this: instead of calling me, he phoned our shirt sponsor to suggest they reduced payments to us because they’d be getting less exposure in the Standard. Then he warned me that banning Standard journalists would have a negative effect on Palace’s results. I asked him what the hell he was talking about, and he implied that if I obstructed his journalists and restricted his press access, the type of coverage they’d be giving us would have a negative effect on morale.

So where is this guy now? Four years on, he’s the top PR man at *****ki, a club with a reputation for obstructing journalists and restricting press access. PR Week says ‘Simon Greenberg is about to embark on a major charm offensive’ in football, to boost *****ki’s image. Stand back, and watch him go.

No, there's no way they could be lying!

I don't particularly trust the word of Gallas but nonetheless I find this to be a hilariously bad PR gaff. A 'big' club acting in incredibly petty fashion. Who would have thought.

The Muppet

eirebhoy wrote:

It may be Chelsea but this is almost certainly true and it's an official statement. They wouldn't get away with making false claims of that nature and I can't for the life of me think why they'd want to. If this was any other club Gallas would be getting slated, he's not getting away with it because he done it to the club everyone now loves to hate.

True but it's hardly surprising considering what Chelsea are doing to football splashing their ill gotten money all over the place. What Gallas is alledged to have done is very unprofessional but it's heartening to see that playing the game is more important than money to some players. Hopefully other players will follow suit.

evilhomer

The Muppet wrote:

but it's heartening to see that playing the game is more important than money to some players. Hopefully other players will follow suit.

I can't believe that you think Gallas moved for less money.

He moved only because he wasn't getting paid 90k a week.
He may have moved for less then he was asking for at Chelsea, but I still bet it's more then he was actually on at Chelsea.

I think the club were being very petty though to come out with a statement like that. I mean Morunhio, if he was thinking could have kept that for his book!

Both sides are wrong, but I still don't like to see players holding a club to ransom because they don't want to fufill a contract they signed.

Fanny Cradock

He is a slave

(to money)

Attractive Nun

Sounds to me simply that Gallas, understandably, was unhappy at the fact he was consistently being played out of position and was being paid significantly less than the 'big players' at the club (Lampard, Terry, Makelele, Ballack, Shevchenko, maybe Cech), and had been unhappy for some time. Chelsea initially refused to oblige his demands, hence Gallas wanted to leave. Apparently they did offer him a new contract, but he refused it because obviously he still felt undervalued or whatever. Gallas, in desperation to move away, started making threats. Mourinho didn't want to sell him to a rival, so Gallas started making more threats and, in the heat of the moment, said the above. He probably realised then that he was in a good position to move to Arsenal, what with Chelsea's desires to capture Ashley Cole, so continued said threats. Kenyon understood the situation and went ahead with the transfer.

I'd say Gallas is in the wrong, definitely, but it's not really as bad as people think. I doubt he ever would have gone through with scoring an own goal.

In his defense, it's very easy for us - on our relatively paltry wages - to immediately denounce footballers as greedy for not being happy with £60,000 a week or whatever. But, in Gallas' case, I reckon it does come as something of an insult when your teammates are being paid almost twice as much as you, especially since I would rate Gallas quite highly in relation to the likes of Lampard and Terry.

RE*AC*TOR

I think everyone comes out looking bad from this. Gallas and Chelsea.

Washing their dirty laundry in public.

bucks73

I dont agree with Gallas "allegedly" said but the way chelsea have handled it is the kind of thing you would expect from a small club trying to hold on to a major player. Just shows for all their money and big names there is still a petty mentality amongst some of those who run the club.

Another thing I couldnt understand about the transfer is that the papers on Friday said Mourinho was fuming as Gallas was sold behind his back. Was he not watching Sky Sports News on Thursday? We were travelling to Germany for the match and it was the main story all Thursday.

tred

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

I think everyone comes out looking bad from this. Gallas and Chelsea.

Washing their dirty laundry in public.

this is just typical chelsea PR to keep the fans Happy. Last season when they tapped cole, they denied it and also said that he wasnt a target as he was too small. I think mourinho himself said this. Now they bend over backwards to buy him but had to let go Gallas as part of the deal. there are rumours that mourinho lambasted kenyon for this deal, as he knew Gallas was a main contributor to the defensive stability and with a good left back, would have started centre back with terry. now that hes gone, they have to appease the fans. Look at the way Arsenal dealt with Cole. Nothing but positives from wenger best of luck to ashley etc etc, even though he didnt want to play for the club either. I think chelsea were on to a winner if they had kept a low profile but to come out wit this, just shows u whats going on in there. It like another kenyon screw up, lets deflect the blame. (lets not forget he let rhonaldhino slip out of Man u's grasp before he signed for barca)

bucks73

Yeah...Kenyon is only interested in looking after one person. Himself.

eirebhoy

kinaldo wrote:

Why not? Abramovich an Co. afraid of getting sued? Are all official statements made by Chelsea now taken to be 100% the truth? What ever happened that John Obi Mikel transfer, how much are Chelsea paying Manchester, Lyn and his agents for that kid? I can't prove anything but I don't doubt that Chelsea bought their way out of that one. They can get away with pretty much anything if u ask me.

Ok so...
"I can't for the life of me think why they'd want to"

tvnutz

That statement sounds so petty and childish. Gallas may have threatened those things but couldn't Chelsea have put out a professional sounding statement that doesn't sound like a school yard arguement.

And the way they keep referring to the team as "the family",what are they,The Sopranos? :rolleyes:

Chucky the tree

The Muppet wrote:

True but it's hardly surprising considering what Chelsea are doing to football splashing their ill gotten money all over the place. What Gallas is alledged to have done is very unprofessional but it's heartening to see that playing the game is more important than money to some players. Hopefully other players will follow suit.

haha, classic.


Yea, fair play to Gallas. Leaving chelsea big bucks behind so he can collect his minum wage at Arsenal but get to play in his favourite position. :rolleyes:

growler

I can understand why chelsea made the statement they did, many fans and pundits didn't understand why we would let Gallas go without offering him a new contract, as a truly class player for us over recent years many of us were unhappy to see him go and particulalry to arse, even in part exchange for that cole fella.


However if Gallas has been behaving like a spoilt child then they were right to explain why he was let go, particularly to one of our main rivals in the cup

Not turning up for the pre season tour was bad enough, but to come out with statments like he was going to "the best fans in england" beggars belief.

Good riddance.